Julee Cruise
Singer and actress whose ethereal vocals characterised David Lynch’s Twin Peaks television series
JULEE CRUISE, who has died aged 65, was a singer and actress whose career encompassed stints with the rock band the B52s and musical theatre, yet is forever defined by her association with the cult television series Twin Peaks.
Her breathy, celestial vocals perfectly fitted the quirky nature of David Lynch’s eccentric drama, which explored the murder of a glamorous teenage schoolgirl in a troubled small-town American community. Originally aired in 1990, it spawned three series, one feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and several books, and it made Cruise a star.
Yet her involvement – and the otherworldly style she epitomised – was largely accidental. She was 29 at the time, waiting tables and working as a chorus girl singing country and western songs in an off-broadway musical. She described herself as “a belter”, her brassy approach perfectly suited to big show tunes, but illequipped to interpret the dreamy music Lynch imagined.
He originally wanted to use This Mortal Coil’s version of Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren for a key scene in Blue Velvet, but when the licensing proved prohibitively expensive, he commissioned the composer Angelo Badalamenti to write an original song in a similar vein. Badalamenti came up with Mysteries of Love and, having met Julee Cruise at a theatre workshop in New York, asked her to recommend a singer.
Instead, she suggested she have a go herself. “I’m a chameleon,” she said. “I’m an actor, I’m a musician, I’m a writer, I’m anything you want me to be.” It required a radical rethink to duplicate the ghostly menace Lynch demanded, but her mesmerising performance over the film’s closing titles transformed her fortunes.
It won her a solo deal with Warner Brothers, a hit single with the Twin Peaks theme music Falling, a bestselling album, Floating Into the Night,a Grammy Award and various appearances in the series as a bar singer, her angelic voice juxtaposed with raucous imagery as she effectively became the voice of Twin Peaks.
She also collaborated with Lynch and Badalamenti on other films, such as Wild at Heart, and even got to sing a tender cover of Elvis Presley’s Summer Kisses in the Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World.
Born in Creston, Iowa, on December 1 1956, Julee Ann Cruise was the daughter of the town dentist Dr John Cruise and his wife Wilma, his office manager. Her father was also a pilot and she learned to fly at 16.
She gained a music degree in the French horn at Drake University, Des Moines and planned a career in classical orchestral music. But she was sidetracked by the lure of musical theatre, joining a children’s theatre company in Minneapolis before trying her luck in New York where, among other things, she played Janis Joplin in the show Beehive.
After the initial wave of Twin Peaks
success, Julee Cruise diversified. She described her second album The Voice of Love as “soup”, but had more success experimenting with lounge jazz and tackling feminist issues on her third album The Art of Being a Girl, which – apart from an updated arrangement of her old hit Falling – featured all her own material.
There was also a starring role in David Lynch’s avant-garde stage show Industrial Symphony No 1 with Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, while her extravagant personality found a happy niche on tour with the B52s as temporary replacement for the lead singer Cindy Wilson. She also toured with Bobby Mcferrin, sang with Pharrell Williams, explored electronica and, in 2011, made a trip hop dance album, My Secret Life, with DJ Dmitri of Deee-lite, including a cover of Donovan’s Season of the Witch.
Strong-minded and independent, she also undertook some adventurous theatrical assignments, which included Return to the Forbidden Planet, a sci-fi remake of The Tempest,
and played several roles – including a demonic nurse and Andy Warhol – in Radiant Baby, based on the life of the artist Keith Haring.
Describing David Lynch as “my big brother”, she appeared to have a love-hate relationship with Twin Peaks, announcing in 2017 that her appearance in Twin Peaks: The Return
was her last. She then withdrew completely from public life, suffering from lupus and depression and living quietly in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where she took her own life.
She is survived by her husband, the editor and author Edward Grinnan.
Julee Cruise, born December 1 1956, died June 9 2022